“Things are created twice”, Stephen Covey wrote in his Seven Habits of the Highly Effective Person.We must first create them mentally before we can create them physically.

This is the time of year I create my garden the first time.Whenever I get a chance, I begin strolling through the yard thinking about what I want to grow where.I hunt for more grass to dig up in order to make space for new beds, ponder changing the shape of old beds, consider if there are plants I want to move or remove,contemplate my choices in flowers, vegetables, vines, trees, and shrubs,and begin planning how I will keep the deer out.

Garden catalogs tend to make up the bulk of my reading these days.I diligently read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, taking delight in the wonderful freedom of ideas before the hard choices of what to actually plant have to be made.

I thoroughly enjoy this phase of gardening, and find it both relaxing and restorative.Of course I can’t wait to actually start digging in the earth, but digging around in my mind in this first act of creation is actually a lot of fun too.

It was about 4 in the afternoon today when I was driving home.When I got to my street, I noticed my wife and younger daughter starting out on a walk.I rolled down my window to say hello and I could immediately tell Mary was happy.“Guess what?” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“I just beat the RockBand solo drumming tour on expert!I can’t believe it!I never thought I’d do it!”She was so cute because she said this with a very slight but irrepressible smile that spoke volumes of the joy she was feeling.

I loved that she wanted to share that joy with me, that she really wanted to tell me about it, that even if for a moment I was being invited into the very heart of her world.

If kids only knew how easy it is for them completely and totally make our day...

If the death I wrote about yesterday was a “good death”, the other two funerals I’ve done in the last few days were anything but.Actually, I will be doing the funeral for the infant today.It is a gray and dreary day with a light drizzle, which somehow seems appropriate.

So how do we get through days like today?

I don’t pretend to have all the answers on this one (or on much of anything, come to think of it!)Sometimes it is all we can do just to put one foot in front of another, and sometimes maybe we can’t quite even do that.Sometimes maybe we just sit with our head in our hands, and sometimes that might even be the one thing that is really needed.

There is an old image I have found very helpful; it comes to me often.It is the image of carrying our grief like logs to a fire.When I bring wood in from the back yard to burn in our fire places, I cradle it in my arms and hold it tight to my chest before letting it go.

I think that is what we need to do with our grief and sorrow as well.Before we can let it go, we first have to hold it close.We must resist the impulse to somehow escape those painful feelings or deny them, medicate them, or somehow distract ourselves from them. Mourning who or what we have lost rightly flows out loving deeply and living honestly.

To be able to do this, I have found that quite simply, I need help.I need the support of those around me, of my family and friends.I need the support of a caring community, and for me, at least, the fact that it is a community of faith as well is also important.Sometimes when I can’t see my way through, I need others who can.And for me, I need the support of God’s presence with me, of walking with the One who “has carried my griefs and born my sorrows.”It’s not so much that I feel that presence; in circumstances like these I often decidedly do not, but it’s more that I chose to believe it is there.

In being willing to hold our grief and sorrow close to us as we carry it, then by the goodness of God’s grace, time will do its healing work and the day will come when we can release it.The sadness, though perhaps always a part of us, no longer needs to dominate our present or color our future. Like burning wood in a fire gives light and warmth to a cold, dark room, the memory of who we or what we’ve loved, or perhaps the wisdom of a hard lesson learned, now gives us light and energy to continue the journey ahead.

* This is the opening line of an old Randy Stonehill song my brother resurrected for the 9:30 service on Easter.Hearing it againreally blessed me in the deepest sense of the word.

I have written before that just as there are a lot of different circumstances surrounding people’s death, so there are a lot of different ways that people approach the end of their own life, especially as it becomes imminent.Some, filled with regret and remorse, are not ready to go.Others are bitter and angry.Still others are frightened, feeling unprepared for what lies ahead.

But some people are “full of days”; they know they have lived well (that there is nothing quantity of life can give that quality of life has not already bestowed) and are deeply loved.Their faith is strong, and they look forward to seeing the God whom they regard “as a friend and not a stranger”.They die at peace, and they welcome the final journey that lies before them.

Our beloved parishioner’s death last week was a death like this.Sandwiched in between two tragic deaths, it was a comfort, a final gift given to those who would be left behind.As consciousness slipped from her, the only words she would say, over and over again, were, “Wonderful.Wonderful.Wonderful.”

Whether she was looking back on her life, or somehow sensing in the present her being completely surrounded by the love of family and friends, or looking ahead into the eyes of the One waiting for her, or some mystical combination of all three, stripped down to its very essence in the end it came down to one thing:

Another book I’ve sometimes thought of writing might be called, “Things They Never Taught Me in Seminary.”Granted, there probably aren’t a lot of people who would pick up a book with a title like that.That’s OK.I think I’d write it chiefly to me.If it meant something to somebody else, well, that would be OK too, but mostly, I think, I’d write it as a way of coming to grips with things I didn’t foresee, didn’t expect, and which have therefore been…challenging… to find my way through.

Case in point:Nobody ever told me I’d be burying the very same people I’d grown to love.I know that one seems self evident, and that a wiser person probably would’ve seen it coming.But I didn’t.And so the same people thatyear in and year out I’ve “done life” with, so that we grew ever closer to the point we really did come to be like family, are many of the same people I will come to bury.That’s the sort of thing one in my profession might do well to be prepared for.

I remember walking with a chaplain at Arlington Cemetery one day as we were proceeding to a graveside for a burial.He told me that most chaplains could only serve at Arlington so long, because then the aggregate weight of all the funerals they were doing, and all the sadness they were seeing, just grew too great and began to color how they viewed the rest of life too.That made a lot of sense to me.

I’ve been a priest 21 years.I started off in Florida, where sometimes we did 3 funerals in a day.That was rare, of course, but the point is I figure I’ve done hundreds of funerals at this point.And yes, there is an aggregate weight to them that is harder to bear than I in my youth and idealistic enthusiasm would have thought.Or maybe it’s just me.How do you know?

Yes, Christians believe that funerals are meant to be a joyful celebration of life and an occasion to renew our trust in the goodness and mercy of God (even when we can’t quite figure out how to see it, as will be the case in the burial of an infant I’ll be doing this week).But we are also… realistic?...in touch?... enough to know that there is also great sorrow in missing those we love, and that is as it should be.As we say in our prayers, even Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus his friend.

May I also briefly add that I don’t write this to cause anyone alarm or to give them reason to worry or be anxious about me?From the start I’ve used this blog as a tool to process and reflect upon some of the more public aspects of my life (the private stuff I save for my journal, and the really private stuff entrusted to me doesn’t get written or shared in any fashion at all), and that’s all I’ve meant to do here.I’m doing fine.

Finally, though I’ve clearly gone on long enough (too long, probably) I think what I want to write about next is a good death (you will have to decide for yourself if there is such a good thing, but I do believe there is), and then conclude with a post on what little I know of finding our way through those that…aren’t.

When I arrived at church shortly after 5 on Easter morning, there were already lay people hard at work preparing for the day.Our first service would start at 6, outside in the dark and cold (the temperature was in the low 20s), and then move by a candlelight procession from our “Chapel in the Woods” into the church.

The day continued with an Easter brunch, a sumptuous “feast of fast things” as it says in Isaiah.Services continued at 8, 9:30, and 11, with the feasting continuing throughout.The music was mind boggling, from the full on band at 9:30 with enhanced percussion, electric violin, and flute, to the choir with hand bells and brass instruments at 11 (finishing with the Hallelujah Chorus—wow!).These days, I think St. Matthew’s music program may be our best kept secret.

At 1PM we had a funeral for a dearly beloved parishioner, followed by a very nice reception.It was after 4 in the afternoon when I left the church.People commented that it was a long day, and it was, with wildly varying thoughts and feelings, so much of it spent in a sort of “emotional overdrive”.But if it was a long day for me, the same people who were at church when I got there in the morning were some of the same people who there are all day as well, still had at work, cleaning up after the reception.

When I got home, I sat on the couch with my younger daughter (my older daughter is back at college) and scratched her back.My wife came down and joined us.It had been a good day.I could not have been more pleased with the services, or with all the service that was offered in and around them and the dear, dear people who had so freely offered it.Though it was difficult to be sure, I felt like our beloved parishioner would have been well pleased her service as well.And now it was good to be home too, and nice to have a chance to sit back and relax.